Thursday, April 06, 2006

Rebel Scum

Yesterday and today one of the sales guys walked down the "programmer aisle" with a Darth Vader toy. He pushes a button on the base and the Imperial Theme starts playing. It also spits out a Darth Vader quote. Why is this jerk off over here sullying my work environment with his quaint little display?

Well, it turns out to be a little ritual here. Every time he closes a sale he comes over here with his Darth toy and plays the sound effects clip. This piques everyone's (or almost everyone's) curiosity. Inevitably one of the fuckers (the same bastard every time) eagerly asks, "Oooh, oooh, who did we sell? Did we just close a deal?" He does this repeatedly while the sales guy ignores him, waiting for both the clip to finish playing and for everyone to pay full attention to him. He then says something to the effect of "We just closed FubarTech." The eager puppy dog programmer then exclaims something like, "All right!!" I imagine he pumps his fist or holds up his hand for a non-existent high five while saying this, but I cannot confirm that as I sit on a different row. I die a little on the inside each time I witness this veritable extravaganza of idiocy.

He's putting on his one man parade to announce that he has finally managed to successfully complete part of his job duties and is therefore receiving additional financial compensation (his commission / bonus). I assume the reason that I was unfamiliar with this overly obtrusive ritual until a few days ago is that he's just not very good at his job.

In the "boy I wish I had the balls to do that" department, I thought about getting a talking Yoda doll and marching over to his area every time I manage to check in a few lines of code--you know, to keep him in the loop. I'll of course need a Marv Albert doll to play the roll of the officious douche bag programmer by exclaiming "YES!!" on demand.